What A Month It Has Been...The Case of the Spaghetti Squash Monster

Sorry for the lack of updates on the garden! For those true detectives from the last post, my garden was planted at my new house. Patti (who was referenced in the last post) was our WONDERFUL seller, who not only offered to let me plant my garden -- but even had it tilled for me.

So, a couple things have prevented me from posting about the garden (or even getting into the garden). We moved. Two houses. And, it just keeps raining. Poor Ryan hasn't even been able to mow very much.

This week I finally had to stop ignoring the garden. I did snap some photos before we finished weeding, so these photos look TERRIBLE!

First up - Spaghetti Squash

I've never planted spaghetti squash. I had no idea its ability to completely take over my garden. I thought I had spaced things out appropriately. I THOUGHT WRONG. It just kept growing and covering everything else. I've heard similar things about cucumbers, I should have done my research. The solution was to just chop off the ends and pray for the best. So far, it looks like it has decided to flower instead of continue to grow - Yay!

Zucchini

The zucchini has the biggest leaves I've ever seen on a plant. It has remained pretty contained to its space, but there are a million flowers. I see a lot of zucchini bread in the future, along with a bunch of new recipes that I make with zucchini. I really love zucchini, so I'm looking forward to having some. I anticipate it will be ready within the next week or so!

Cantaloupe

Cantaloupe was a late addition to the garden. I wasn't sure how it would react. The plants are pretty small, but it's already flowering. We'll see what happens!

Tomatoes

Our tomatoes were an interesting situation. We were only able to cage two plants prior to our moves. So, this is one of the ones that was caged early. They are doing great and I think they will produce abundantly. However, the other 4 plants are a different story. We've had some pretty strong storms and were only able to cage them this week. Hopefully they will recover and be able to support themselves, but I'm not sure what to think right now.

Peppers

The peppers have been caught in spaghetti squash's quest to conquer the garden. They seem to be ok, but I worry about their strength since they've been shaded by the monster zucchini and spaghetti squash leaves.

Watermelon

Ryan's watermelon. We thought early on that it would not do anything. Now, it is going quite well. We should see some things later this summer.

Three nights of working in the garden made it look quite pretty this week. Hopefully we can keep up on the maintenance and it won't take as much work in coming weeks :) Is it time to eat this stuff, yet?!?!

Fresh, Farm Picked Melons!

I've been keeping a close eye on my cantaloupes. Last week, I came out to find one all cracked up and bug filled. Bummer. I wish I had some advice on how to pick them perfectly, but I haven't figured it out yet!

Earlier this week, in anticipation of it becoming over-ripe, I picked a cantaloupe. It was terrible. Not completely green, but it was the type of cantaloupe you are served in a restaurant when it's not really in season. It lacked flavor.

Today was a big day though! I had two perfectly ripe cantaloupe. I have a hard time not eating as I cut these. They are so good!



Plenty more where that one came from! Odd that the cantaloupe is ready about the same time as last year, despite getting in the ground about 3 weeks earlier. Interesting observation, I might make a special note.

The Joys of Summer

I love tomatoes. I love to cut them up and eat a whole plate as a snack. Or, as a meal! They are one of my biggest joys of having a garden and one of my favorite memories from Grandpa's garden growing up.

I could seriously write a love poem to garden tomatoes,but I'll keep that one to myself. It probably would have a sad last verse since this year has not been the greatest for tomatoes.

I had a decent hall from the garden today, I picked about 10 tomatoes and a few more peppers. Now,I'm going to sit back and enjoy this:



Delicious.

Elsie's Salsa

The blossom-end rot delayed my salsa making plans this year. I have been slowly gathering ripe tomatoes, resisting my desires to eat them and putting them in a gallon bucket, anxiously awaiting a full gallon so I could make salsa.

Our 2009 garden plan was basically this: make "grandma's salsa." The grandma in this case was Ryan's grandma, Elsie. Ryan has great memories from his childhood of his grandma canning her salsa. The taste brings back all of those memories and it's something that my non-food loving husband, LOVES. I tried making it last year, scared to death that it wouldn't taste the same, but Ryan and his sister both agree that it tastes just like they remember.

So, aside from the gallon of tomatoes, the salsa also includes green peppers (obviously not from my garden), jalapenos, onions (also not from my garden...can you tell I'm bitter?) and Serrano peppers (or, a hot chile pepper).

Mixed all together and cooking on the stove:



After cooking and hot water bath canning..... we have 10 freshly canned salsa jars (and one larger jar with the leftover). I am not very good at planning how many jars I need, but I made a note for next time, I need 12 pint jars!



Hopefully, this is just the beginning of our yummy salsa making 2010. If you want the full recipe, please let me know.

Blossom-End Rot

As someone who has spent a lot of time writing about Rhizoctonia Root Rot or Phytophora Root Rot (both soybean diseases for those of you going "huh?"), you would think I would be thrilled to talk about my new discovery: Blossom-End Rot . WRONG. It's in MY garden!

Blossom-End Rot is happening all over my tomato plants and from what I can read on the internet, there is nothing I can do about it! Blossom-End Rot is associated with calcium absorption into the plant and is caused by many things.

Here is what my friends at THE Ohio State University Extension have to say about it:

This may result from low calcium levels or high amounts of competitive cations in the soil, drought stress, or excessive soil moisture fluctuations which reduce uptake and movement of calcium into the plant, or rapid, vegetative growth due to excessive nitrogen fertilization.

Summary: I had too much water followed by no water, my plants are screwed.

This picture was taken from tOSU's website and displays what is happening. I keep forgetting to take pictures when I am out in the garden.



While this problem will not spread from one fruit to another, it can cause quite the problems throughout the garden. Again, tOSU says

This nonparasitic disorder can be very damaging, with losses of 50% or more in some years.

So far, I have tossed as many tomatoes this year as I have picked. I am hoping that it is just on the early ones and we can continue on to a successful growing season. Unfortunately, a lot of the plants are already struggling due to the various dead parts caused by the flooding.

Blossom-End Rot also appears on peppers and eggplant. My eggplants are troopers and I am seeing no signs of this disorder on them. However, the peppers are getting taken pretty fast, so their likelihood of survival is very low.

Let's hope some rain and balance of calcium can get these plants out of their stressed disposition! To read more about blossom-end rot from tOSU go to this link: http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/3000/3117.html. And, please remember to use "the" before every mention of Ohio State. Thanks.

A Whole Family Of Tomatoes!

I picked a whole family of tomatoes today. We've got big daddy, momma, brother and the twins....



Tasty!

Growing Gardens Need Water

I knew I would be saying this eventually - but I think we could use some rain! Oh well, if we don't get it early next week, I will be forced to water, water, water. As far as weather goes, HOT is the only way to describe the last few weeks.

I heard recently that I am "quite the gardener" or from others they heard I "love gardening". I'm here to set the record straight on this, or at least provide some clarity. I like planting and watching things grow. I LOVE eating what comes out of the garden. The process of weeding, however, is my LEAST favorite thing to do. And, I'm terrible at it (you'll see as this post goes on). So, I think that would make me a B- gardener, at best. I guess this post somewhat falls in the "not an expert" area again. I just want to say that I'm not "quite the gardener." I think its about 80 percent luck!

A few things have transpired this week, so let's take a look at them...Some of the tomatoes are ripening! Please note: none of the early girls are ripening or close to ripening. What a joke! I won't waste my time/space with them in the future. This small picture really doesn't give you a full idea, but it does show some orange amongst the green.



We still see the results of earlier flooding. The tomatoes are a bit stunted, I would say. Aside from large areas of dead plant, the fruit that is producing is smaller than average when it is ripening. I see this with the surviving green peppers as well. Of course, this doesn't stop the appeal or taste. In the case of this tomato, size does not matter. It was FANTASTIC!



The eggplants, which are actually in the same row as the tomatoes and one row over from the green peppers, look just fine (another mystery)! I predict eggplant fries in our near future!



Oh look! The watermelon is getting bigger! We now counted 13. "Sharing is caring" will be our motto in a few weeks I'm sure.



I received feedback on my last melon post suggesting my cantaloupe didn't look like cantaloupe. They were still pretty young at the last post. Here is one that is maturing and OH NO! it looks like a cantaloupe to me! (This is also the same exact cantaloupe from the last post):



I researched the cantaloupe life cycle online and they appear to be normal at this stage. I grew cantaloupe last year, but I never even noticed them until they were yellowed and ready to be picked!

In other news, the green beans produced well and the zucchini keep on ticking. I didn't take any pictures, but they're good to go - trust me.

Melon Monday

Yesterday was a great day to get out and check out the garden. It was also a weeding day, but I hate weeding - let's focus of the fun stuff. Most of the exciting stuff is happening with the melons. However, first things first. Do you see what I see?



Yep. It's a red tomato! YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will return in a couple days. If it makes it to the house, I may even slice it. :)

And, now back to the melons! The watermelon keep growing wonderfully and vary in size. For the ones we can see, we counted 11 melons yesterday.

Some look like this (or even smaller):



Others look like this:



The watermelon are the most popular garden topic for my husband. He cannot wait for them to ripen!

In other melon news, we also see cantaloupe forming (on the other side of the garden). These are not as exciting for my husband, but they are incredibly exciting for me! I love cantaloupe. They look weird, but I think will eventually plump and round out a little.

Small cantaloupe:



Probably the biggest one we have right now:



There will be no entries on "What To Do" with watermelon or cantaloupe. The simple answer is "eat it"!

Rain, Rain, GO AWAY

Rain, Rain, Go away. Come again.....in like three weeks. SERIOUSLY. I have had it with the rain. Not only does it affect my mood - it also has resulted in negative things happening in my garden.

Apparently, too much of a good thing (rain) is not a good thing with several plants. I can see things going drastically worse if someone doesn't turn off the faucet soon and for more than just a day. Below is a summary of plants that don't like this much rain.

Cauliflower:



Broccoli:



Jalapenos (sorry tilt your head and look for the little peppers):



Green Peppers:



Tomatoes:



You know what loves this water? Weeds. You'll have to excuse the huge mess of weeds, but I can hardly make it into the garden just to check on things without sinking down.

Something else that doesn't seem to care about the rain:



Zucchini. Oh well, they aren't overproducing...so I can handle a few a week. Hopefully, happy posts will return shortly. If I stop posting, I'm grieving the death of my garden.

Dried Up (Well, Dry Enough)

The monsoons finally stopped and the garden had an opportunity to dry out. The 92 degree days with 102 degree heat index probably didn't hurt, either. The aforementioned heat index did limit my time in the garden, yesterday.

Here are some updates:

Snow Peas: Yellowing and done. No longer producing pods.
Cantaloupe: Growing and potentially flowering.
Green Beans: Strong, no sort of pods yet,
Cauliflower: No clue. They are still growing, but I don't know.

I took some pictures of the more exciting items.

Tomatoes: Seeing fruit in good sizes. I would really like to see it dry out soon for the sake of the tomatoes, though.



Jalapenos: Little peppers on various plants. I am hoping the plants will grow some more - they are small right now.



Green Peppers: Similar to the jalapenos all the way around, I really would love to see the plants grow more.



Broccoli: The heads are coming! It's pretty exciting since I like broccoli a lot.



Zucchini: We have zucchini! I picked three yesterday. They are growing like crazy.





We tried out the zucchini on the grill last night and it was FANTASTIC!

It's The Little Things

Little things make me smile. The garden tends to do that often! I've picked lots of snow peas in the last week and there are even more out there now! The lettuce just keeps on growing! We've been eating lots of salads and sharing bags of lettuce with friends!

The discovery of the week goes to....



It's a little tomato! Surprisingly, these are on the beefsteak tomatoes! Just a little longer and we should have the long awaited first tomato of the summer!

The watermelon are also taking off. Or, I should say they are ready to take over their allotted space (and more). Maybe we'll have watermelon by the fourth of July? That would be awesome!



The zucchini are growing the most! This picture does not do the monstrosity that is this zucchini plant justice!



The only issues in the garden right now are little worms. Here is a great example of why I don't do organic. Broccoli:



I laughed as all the worms tried to escape my Sevin dusting! BWAHAHAHAHAHA

All Tomatoes Not Created Equal

Last year, I only planted one variety of tomatoes because of my limited garden space. This year, I experimented with the three different types. I have already learned that all tomatoes are not created equal, but you don't have to take my word for it!

The early girls probably should be renamed to waiting on a woman. I will be shocked if I get tomatoes out of these before the others:



Why are they called better boys? Probably because they grow better:



I like beef and steak, will I like beefsteak tomatoes? I sure hope so! They aren't as strong as the better boys, but they are still doing better than early girls:

The Weedy Wonder

Ok, I'll admit I've been reluctant to post pictures because the garden had been over taken by weeds. I used Preen for most of the garden, but I was afraid of stunted growth with the plants that were starting from seed. The result? Lots of weeds, but strong plants! I spent this morning trying to control some of the weed problem. I even hurt my finger while weeding!

Ryan caged the tomatoes earlier this week:



Watermelon growing, slowly but surely:



Zucchini is flowering:



Snow peas (freshly weeded). I should have taken a before picture!:



This lettuce has been weeded and there are still a ton of weeds!:



The weekend plans involve a lot more weeding and probably some additional radish harvests!

Time Flies!

Today, I went to the garden for the first time in almost a week! I wasn't too busy for the garden, but we made a short trip out of state last week, so no time to blog or even check on the garden.

While we were gone, we received a good amount of rain (1.3 in) and some hot weather! It's 80 today and HUMID. The garden is growing well, with a few exceptions.

Watermelon - we left the hotcaps on from a couple weeks ago to encourage growth. We have successful growth for 10 of them, but we lost a few plants along the way.

Cantaloupe - these were planted after the freeze threat, but have really struggled getting their roots established. I have three plants that are ok, but I will be planting more soon.

Cayenne pepper - I think an animal may have bit the top of this plant. It looks terrible! I will likely need to plant another.

As previously mentioned, everything else is looks pretty good. We staked part of the tomatoes today and spread some sevin to take care of pest pressure.

The surprise of the day was the radishes. They are ready! Here is the bucket full of the day:



They tasted delicious!

Full Garden Pictures

It's been awhile since I posted full garden pictures, mostly because there was nothing to show. I didn't get the whole garden in a picture so I will show them in two stages......

The "North Side":



Hotcaps (Rows 1 and 2) are the watermelon. They were planted in hard conditions, so I left the hotcaps on this week to give them a chance.

Row 3: All Tomatoes

Row 4: First three plants are Eggplants, the rest are Tomatoes

Rows 5 & 6: Green Peppers and Jalapenos, respectively

Row 7: Banana and Chili Peppers, Onions

(See next picture for rest)

The "South Side"




Row 1: Same as Row 7 in first picture

Row 2: Zucchini

Row 3: Broccoli

Row 4: Cauliflower

Row 5: Snow Peas

Row 6: Green Beans

Row 7: Lettuce/Radishes

"Open space" Rows 8 & 9: Cantaloupe

I never counted the rows. 15 rows of fine, fresh, farm-raised produce growing! I know we will really enjoy the "fruits" of our labor this summer. It's hard to imagine right now!

Tomato Thursday?

I thought about having themed blog days and then I realized that I like Tomatoes so much more than anything else! I probably would end up with Mater Monday, Tomato Tuesday, Tomato Thursday and Saucy Saturday! I could really use a tomato right now. Ripe, red, juicy, straight from the garden tomato.

My mouth is watering.

Of course, this is what my plants look like right now (so that's not happening):



I think the wind is getting to the plants. They are starting to lean. It's been crazy here this week!

Time to Think about Preservation

My tomato plants are looking GREAT. You know what that means?!?!?! More SALSA! Last year I only canned salsa and peppers (both jalapenos and Tabasco peppers). This year, I hope to stock up on more salsa and other veggies if possible.

In my quest to improve my education (and the fact I have a lot of free time on my hands), I signed up for two food preservation classes through the University of Illinois Extension!

Here are the descriptions:

June 17th–Canning: This program will offer information on the two safe ways to can. We will demonstrate how to do boiling water bath canning and pressure canning. The equipment for both types of canning will be shown. There will be a discussion on which method should be used for different foods.

June 24th–Freezing and Salsa making: Freezing is one of the easiest methods of preserving food. This program will focus on the advantages and disadvantages of freezing. The importance of pretreatments for some foods will be discussed and blanching will be demonstrated. Some important guidelines for preparing safe home canned salsas will be provided

They also offered a jam/jelly and food drying session, but I'll stick to these two for now. I hope I can learn a little more about canning - especially with tomatoes. I also hope to pick up other ideas for my various veggies in the garden!

You may want to check your local extension offices to see if they are offering courses, as well. I wish I had someone close to take the course with me, but maybe it will be an opportunity for me to make new (85-year-old) friends.

EMERGENCE!

Ok, it's been almost a week since my last post - SORRY! It rained A LOT last weekend, so there isn't anything I could do in the garden...but the plants had plenty to do!

I went out today and planted zucchini. I removed the asparagus plants (RIP) and using their row for the zucchini. I'm looking forward to the assortment of squash this summer (zucchini and eggplant.)

Here is a picture of the freshly planted and watered zucchini. Please note, it's incredibly windy today. Check out the emergence of the corn next to my garden!



As a part of my blog, I plan to give regular updates on each of vegetables on a semi-regular basis. Here is your first progress report:

Tomatoes - all plants are growing, looking strong

Eggplants - great leaf growth in these plants, they really strive in our soil type

Green Peppers and Jalapenos - looking good, growing

Banana Peppers - all plants growing well

Onions - some have taken off quicker than others - hopefully this will result in a spread out growing season

Snow Peas - I fear a repeat of last year's sugar snap pea disaster, I see nothing........

Green Beans - EMERGENCE. They look great coming out of the ground!



Lettuce - I had no idea how to plant the lettuce, so I may have not spread it out enough. But, more emergence!



Radishes - The last thing planted from seed, the radishes seem to be flourishing! Glad I have a lot of friends who like Radishes!



I'm still looking for a good selection of watermelon and cantaloupe plants. I plan to check out the Macon County Extension's plant sale this weekend and see what I can find.